Complete chaos.

Yes, Kickbaby is triumphantly crawling now, and he achieved this level of wreckage in about seven minutes flat. He was so pleased with himself.

I assume I have about eighteen more years of this to look forward to...

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Look out here we come

Just when you're noticing motherhood is a whole lot of lather-rinse-repeat, the baby sprays Gerber pears in your eye and you think, "Well, that's something different."

Kickbaby has just turned six months old, and it's like a little milestone alarm has gone off in his head. First tooth: check. Sitting up unassisted for long periods: check. Wanting solid foods: check. Making valiant efforts to crawl: check.

Yesterday I sat him on his duckie blanket in the toy room and stepped around the corner to unload the dishwasher. When I checked on him a minute later he was on the other side of the room, lying on his tummy and playing with Berry's musical Dora van, calm as you please.

I missed it that time, but I've seen his vigorous commando-style floor scooting several times since. He's very efficient with it, which means (alas! alack!) I'll have to keep a much closer eye on him from now on. And, like, pick small stuff up off the floor.

At his six-month well baby appointment today he weighed 21lbs 4oz (9.65kg; 95th percentile) and he measured 28in long (71.25cm; 95th percentile) and he tore all the paper off the examining table in a delighted frenzy of crinkling. He loves paper, and his spoilsport mother never lets him play with it. Something about a choking hazard.

Oh, and his head measures 18.5in (a whopping 47cm, and way off the top of the chart). That point of interest is for Jules and Mark, two boys with "good-sized heads", as my Nanna liked to say. Kickbaby has a very good-sized head.

He talks now, too. His favourite (well, only) words are "Ba! Ba!" and "Dada". The latter, of course, is to thank Nathan for the endless hours he spends pacing the floor with Kickbaby in the middle of the night.

*Cough*

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Winkin Wogs

Berry got a set of Lincoln Logs for her birthday, but she's sure they're called Winkin Wogs. She plays with them constantly, usually leaving it looking like a tiny colonial village has exploded on my studio floor.

I had both kids in the studio while I was working the other day and (cue "should've known better"-type music) I turned my back for a few seconds. Almost immediately, Kickbaby gave a startled yowl.

"I did poke him in the head," Berry said matter-of-factly.
"What!!"
"I did poke him in the head with a Winkin Wog."

Of course. Clarification makes it all better.

A very bad night

Embarrassing admission: I didn't know croup still existed.

I honestly thought it was a yesteryear kind of thing, like smallpox or polio – the last time I heard of it, Anne of Green Gables was heroically dosing baby Minnie May with ipecac syrup to save her from a midnight 'attack of the croup'.

There's nothing like finding out you're wrong firsthand.

On Tuesday evening Kickbaby startled awake with a strangled yell. A yell that kept on going, and kept on sounding strangled. I thought he was hungry but he refused to eat, arching away and flailing his arms, and every exhaled cry sounded like a seal bark. He – and I – got more and more frantic while Nathan called the ER.

The pediatrician said try a room full of steam or bring him in, so we stood in the bathroom with the shower on full-blast hot, sweating and trying to soothe our slippery, desperate, barking baby. It was awful. After about three-quarters of an hour he calmed down enough to sleep.

An hour later he woke with another yell, and this time it was all so, so much worse. Every breath was a long, strangled wheeze that made his little body rigid, every cry was a huge bark, and at every moment I thought surely he didn't get any air that time, except he would cry again so he must have. It was incredibly frightening. He stopped thrashing around long enough for us to get his exhausted little body into the car seat and put a sleepy Berry in the car, and we all rushed to the hospital on base.

Croup in a five-month-old baby is serious stuff. Their airways are so tiny that the inflammation can block them off. A toddler or a child with croup is miserable, but pretty safe. A baby is not. After two doses of epi mist didn't eliminate the stridor (showing the inflammation was severe) they gave Kickbaby two steroid shots and x-rayed his chest.

I was astounded that they haven't come up with a more humane, gentle way to keep babies still for x-rays than this device (let me assure you, the calm 'hey check it out, I'm trapped in a tube' attitude of the toddler pictured is not typical, and a little baby looks even more pitiful strapped in there). But it turns out they get a better chest x-ray image if the infant is crying vigorously. It also turns out that the whole procedure makes you want to deck the tech and sprint off into the night with your helpless child.

I digress...

Judging from the x-rays it was lucky we'd headed for the ER when we did, and Kickbaby was admitted to the hospital. I spent the rest of the night and the whole day by his bed, relieved the steroids worked so well and hoping we could take him home at night.

Kickbaby did sleep at home last night – he actually slept through the night which is unheard-of for him. This morning he's congested and croaky, but otherwise a brand-new little man. Me – I'm exhausted, relieved and grateful. And newly enlightened about croup.

Relief!

A French giraffe to the rescue!

Kickbaby has been teething – or acting for all the world like he's teething – for the best part of a month. Gnawing savagely on everything he can get his hands on, drooling incessantly (sorry to ruin your smooth image, Kickbaby) and squawking about it all quite loudly.

Since I won't buy something made-in-China and potentially toxic to put in my baby's mouth, I googled "BPA-free teethers" and the adorable Vulli Sophie La Girafe popped up. I was startled at first: twenty dollars for a teether! But then I found out it's handmade in the French Alps from all-natural non-toxic rubber, decorated with non-toxic vegetable-based paint – and has been made the same way since 1961 (hence the cute retro look).

She is now, hands down, Kickbaby's favourite toy. I would've paid double for the wonderful peace it's given me – I wish I'd known about her sooner!

My friend Pauline is French... if I discover she knew about Sophie La Girafe and was holding out on me, there'll be trouble.

Softhead

Being a big sister is one of Berry's proudest achievements (oh yes – she is under the impression it's a position she's earned through merit). Yesterday she sidled up to Kickbaby, who was lying on my lap. "I love you, little man," she said. "I love you very much. Your big sister give you a kiss, and a hug, and a softhead."

Uhh... a what?

A "softhead", it turns out, is Berry's invented term for rubbing the palm of your hand gently across the top of a baby's head.

Everyone does it. Now you have a name for it. You're welcome.

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Leaps and bounds

Well, I just missed Kickbaby's first rollover. I put him on his tummy on a quilt on the floor and went to put together the high chair on the other side of the room. When I turned around, he was lying on his back watching me, casual as you please.

I laughed, he laughed, I put him on his tummy again and he pushed up with his beefy arms and rolled right over again. He doesn't fancy being on his tummy, and sees a way to solve it.

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Please, no pictures

Continuing the long and proud Lewis-baby tradition of being curiously large, Kickbaby weighed in at his two-month appointment: a jaw-dropping 15 pounds.

The nurse said, "I can't remember the last time I saw one this big!"

At 15 pounds, he's in the 95th percentile (meaning, since someone asked last time, that he's heavier than 95 percent of babies his age).

Berry, on the other hand, was a scrawny little third-percentile baby. Her weighings were absolutely pathetic, and people always underestimated her age by several months. At six months old, she weighed a teensy 14 pounds, 8 ounces – that's right, less than Kickbaby weighs at two months.

As I write, he's having a lovely snooze in his baby swing. He suggests that if you devote every minute to eating, sleeping and more eating, you too could double your weight in two months.

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37 Weeks, just want to lie down...

Tired of seeing me being pregnant? Me too.

Today I hit 37 weeks and had another appointment at the hospital. My doctor says I'm already measuring 40 weeks ("At least you're consistent," she said. "Well, consistently ahead of where you should be.")

The ultrasound shows Kickbaby weighing about 7lb 5oz so far – although at this late stage the measurements should be taken with a grain of salt. He still has ample time to relax in there and get fat(ter), but I'm being optimistic and hoping he might end up in the 7-8lb range.

I'm down to rotating three reasonably presentable maternity shirts and one not-so-fabulous tshirt, and two pairs of pants. Jenny McCarthy confessed that she resorted to wearing only a muu-muu in the last months of her pregnancy. Officially I'd be appalled at myself for doing that; unofficially, it sounds sooo comfortable. It's lucky I have my pride.

Tomorrow is May 1. Tomorrow when people ask me, "When is that baby due?" I'll finally be able to say, "This month!"

Maybe then they won't shake their heads and look at me funny...


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Bit sad...

Kickbaby's in the middle of a vigorous workout, Berry's finally, finally, upstairs in bed, and I'm feeling like a mediocre excuse for a mother again.

(All together now: feign surprise!)

I've been feeling so tired and unwieldy and overwhelmed and irritable these past couple of weeks, struggling with the big big baby, with being 37 weeks pregnant in the Mississippi heat, and with the polyhydramnios (for sensible normal people who have no reason to know, that's just the medical term for having way-too-much amniotic fluid).

I had been fervently wishing that Kickbaby would just come out already, until the other night I was lying on the bed and it dawned on me – when Kickbaby's born:
1) I'll have to look after him, and he'll be more exhausting out than in; and
2) Berry won't be an only child anymore. It won't be just us.

Both of these things would have occurred to a sensible-normal person a long time ago, but for a moment I was genuinely caught off-guard. And in that instant, I felt the resurgence of the bizarre feeling of sorrow for Berry that punished me when I first found out I was pregnant again: "Oh, I've betrayed you! You're my little girl, you need all my attention! I'm so sorry! What have I done!"

It doesn't matter that intellectually I know Berry will love her little brother, it doesn't matter that I can't even begin to imagine my life without my sister and brothers – somehow, I feel like a terrible traitor. I hope it's just the hormones.

In the aftermath of my little revelation on the bed, I've been trying to focus on spending good, fun times with Berry in the last days where it'll be "just us" – with play-doh and drawing and painting and gardening (she loves to water plants) and reading stories... Unfortunately, things aren't exactly coming up roses.


I don't know what I expected from a two-year-old, but in the midst of all this positive attention Berry has actually seemed more needy and jittery and demanding and prone to unbearable frustrations, which in turn is making me agitated and snappish. It's so very far from the effect I wanted to have.

Tonight, after a long series of small battles that I didn't handle well, she finally cuddled up on my shoulder saying, "I bit sad, I bit angry, Mama. I not happy-again. I sad. Sing me, Mama..." And so I sang to her, feeling like a great big failure who just wanted to cry too, until she fell asleep.

I'm sure there are a hundred answers to the little mess I'm in – relax and back off probably chief among them – and I imagine it'll all work out in the end. But for now, I just want to sit at the end of my sleeping two-year-old's bed and tell her that I really want to get it all right, that I really am trying, and to tell Kickbaby that I hope I'll be truly nice by the time he gets out here.

In the meantime, I just wish my mind and body would do me the kindness of being quiet, and still, until all this is done.



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Unnecessarily large

My eighth birthday present: my brother Jules.

This photo was taken on the third day of his life (see the hospital band still on his left arm) and if you think he seems abnormally bulky, you'd be right. He weighed in at a completely unacceptable 10lbs 10oz – and this is why I've been earnestly asking Kickbaby not to take after Uncle Jules just yet.

Sadly, I don't think he's listening.

My obstetrician ordered a growth-study ultrasound because I'm still measuring three weeks ahead of where I should be. Nathan got me an appointment yesterday and later he went down and looked at the images with the radiologist, who said the following:

Kickbaby's measuring fully 34 weeks and 4 days (I'm only 31 weeks, 4 days).
His head is 95th percentile.
His body is 95th percentile.
His legs are 50th percentile (so, at least that's normal).
And lastly: "He's huge. Are you sure your wife doesn't have gestational diabetes or something?"

No, I absolutely do not have gestational diabetes.

For pitiful comparison's sake, Berry measured in the 4th (yes, fourth) percentile all over at birth, and stayed at the bottom of the charts for absolutely ages. The doctors are estimating that Kickbaby already weighs more than Berry did when she was born... he's going to be a whole new ballgame.

I've warned our families to resist any urges to buy cute-tiny-baby-clothes. Because, you know, he'll probably need a scooter or something.



(A shout-out to our intrepid mother – all five of us weighed at 10lbs or more at birth. Did I say intrepid? I meant unwise....)

(Wait: Aaron proudly informs me that he was the "runt" at a mere 9lbs 9oz. Yeah, I'm sure that makes a big difference.)

It's a.....

This morning we asked, "Berry, would you like a baby?"
"Yes," she said.
"Would you like a baby girl?"
"No."
"Would you like a baby boy?"
"No."

So we're not sure exactly what she's expecting, but thanks to the high-res ultrasound this afternoon, we now know that we're expecting a boy.

Ta-daaa! A box set.

Surprise!

When I showed him the little window, Nathan put his head in his hands.

"People who are trying to get pregnant would kill for their test to look like that," he said.

"No, look: there are kind of two lines," I said, "but one of them looks like it's just a mark where a line should be, not really a line. So it might be negative after all."

He looked at me with what could have been pity. Or disbelief. "Trust me. You're pregnant."

I sat quite still on the couch in the office, and Nathan turned back to the computer and ordered the lab tests. Then he hugged me and told me it would be okay, and I walked in slow-motion (I'm sure it was in slow-motion) down to the labs.

Having had one baby, I've read my share of pregnancy magazines where women share oh-so-sweet and wholesome stories of how they let their husbands know the happy news: "I gift-wrapped a pair of baby booties and put them on his pillow!" and "I bought a pint of 'Big Daddy' ice cream and taped the pregnancy test to the lid!" (um... ew).

I'm kind of betting they don't want to know about wives who crash their husband's office between patients, with a zip-locked EPT in their purse and a bad case of denial.

I'm also betting, though, that three months into this pregnancy with Baby 2, we're now every bit as happy as the rest of them. It'll be amazing for Berry to have a little brother or sister, and we can't wait to see who this little person turns out to be. 2008 is going to be way more interesting than we bargained for.

Berry loves babies. And that makes three of us.

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